Movie Review: Kick-Ass 2

When it comes to superhero movies, the pattern is usually that the sequel is better than the original. The audience isn’t forced to sit through an origin story that many people are already familiar with. For real, how many times do we need to see Uncle Ben get shot. Superhero sequels have the advantage to hit the ground running rather than dealing with the hero transformations that eats up valuable running time. X2: X-Men United, Spiderman 2, and The Dark Knight are perfect examples of my super sequel theory with only Iron Man 2 bucking the trend. This week Kick-Ass 2 hopes to follow the formula of success with a sequel that’s more violent, foul and funnier than the original.

Kick-Ass 2 has our heroes Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) poorly attempting to lead normal lives. Kick-Ass has retired, but finds his high school life boring and Hit-Girl is skipping class everyday to train and take out the occasional bad guy. Right when Dave decides to dust off the old costume, Mindy decides her time as Hit-Girl is over. Mindy’s decision to hang up her mask and blades provides new laughs with her fish out of water story dealing with high school life. Instead of gangsters, Mindy battles a trio of popular girls that are straight out of Mean Girls and Heathers. Mindy’s altercation with the teen girl posse is one of the grossest and funniest gags (no pun intended) in Kick-Ass 2.

Fear not Kick-Ass fans. Your bloody punching bag of a hero finds some new homemade superheroes to hang with in Kick-Ass 2. Kick-Ass joins Justice Forever, a group of rag-tag superheroes led by Jim Carrey’s Colonel Stars and Stripes. Carrey’s role is limited, but he’s very entertaining playing a bad dude who does good for the community. If you’re looking for Carrey to make jokes and faces, you won’t find it here. Instead you get a side of Carrey we have never seen before. A complete bad-ass. My one complaint about Kick-Ass 2 would be that Carrey’s role was minimal. Luckily newcomer Donald Faison who plays Doctor Gravity and the returning of Clark Duke’s Marty provides a good deal of laughs on the hero side of Kick-Ass 2. Since we do live in a post Avengers world, I really enjoyed the team up aspect of Kick-Ass 2.

The real stars that drive the laughs, action and make Kick-Ass 2 better than its predecessor are the villains. I thought the first Kick-Ass lacked a quality antagonist (sorry Mark Strong fans), but not this time in Kick-Ass 2. Christopher Mintz-Plasse is back with a new agenda, to destroy Kick-Ass. Mintz-Plasse wasn’t given much of a role in the first film, but he steals the show this time around. He drops the Red Mist moniker and adopts a new name that I can’t write in this review (starts with Mother, rhymes with Trucker), I’m sure you get the idea. His transformation into a super villain is hilarious and creates some of the best action of Kick-Ass 2 when he decides to create a super group of villain followers. Olga Kurkulina as Mother Russia is, in my opinion, the best addition to the franchise and her suburban cop battle scene has some of the best comic book action you will see on film this year. When Hit-Girl finally returns to action you get an exciting showdown that’s chock-full of gore, gun play and dirty giggles. All the things that make you love an over the top comic book genre buster like Kick-Ass 2. Overall, Kick-Ass 2 earn the score of 3 out of 4 potatoes.

I'm CW44's Media Critic, 44 on the Town Co-Host and one of the top Pop Culture nerds in Tampa Bay. I help make the decision whether to see it or skip it when it comes to movies. Voted runner up in Creative Loafing's Best of the Bay 2015 for Best...